Words matter. So does holding space for one another.

Active listening to the words spoken, matters too. The circles continue. The ongoing Women’s Empowerment Circles take flight and change our inner perspectives in the outside world.

In my outside world, being an actress in Hollywood, is brutal. Countless auditions, aggressive agents, misleading managers, entertainment lawyers negotiating deals for network shows, getting hired/getting fired, making money/going broke, getting feedback, “She’s amazing but…too fat, too skinny, too blonde, too butch, too white, too different, too too too… I don’t know, she’s just. Not. Right.” This all wreaks havoc on my super sensitive Pisces’ soul.

Words matter.

Ten years of working as an actress I am beat up and spit out. I beg my astrologer for answers (I know what it looks like, but she was one of the best and had a one year waiting list). I beg, “What’s my purpose? What should I do? Tell me! I can’t do this anymore.” She reads my stars like a NY Times best seller with cliff hanging clarity.

“You’re doing it. You’re living the spiritual life of an artist. Just remember, a Pisces will walk a mile to get their feelings hurt.” Great. I’m screwed. I stare at the tipi in my backyard in Beverly Hills.

What’s my purpose? Show me the way. I teach myself to pray. Women answer the call to circle. Women in search of meaning. Women with modern lives and big dreams. We circle around each woman. We listen without fixing. We lift one another up. We face our fears. We do it scared. We practice bravery. We say out loud what we want. We say it proud. We learn to receive. Words matter.

“What’s shared in the circle, stays in the circle.” A circle guideline. But here’s the gist, careers are launched, partners are manifested, babies are born, cancer disappears, and divorces survived. Miracles become normal. Normacle. We make up new words to fit our evolution.

Words matter. We take matters into our own hands. We become the change we’ve been waiting for. We don’t need rescuing, we need remembering. We study the divine, the prophets and scholars. We remember who we are before we were told who to be. We weave a new story. Words matter. In that first circle thirty years ago, I entered as an anxious and closed off mess, and left remembering who I was, a beautiful blessing designed to connect and co-create in love. I felt a comfort, peace and serenity I had never known before and wanted more.

I was home. That night on the hill with giddy excitement I wrote in my oversized journal, “I now have the circle to refer to in moments of weakness and not knowing, the circle that carries so much beauty, truth, and wisdom. I just have to remember to access its power and it will serve me. I love this time.”

Thirty years later, these words matter.